


Fight Night

by shyday



Category: Ripper Street
Genre: Drunkenness, First Time Blow Jobs, M/M, Missing Scene, Post-Season/Series 02 Finale, Season/Series 02
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-08
Updated: 2015-03-08
Packaged: 2018-03-16 21:43:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,847
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3503852
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shyday/pseuds/shyday
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The shouting crowd disperses. And a very drunk Homer Jackson wanders in.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fight Night

**Author's Note:**

> This was completely an accident. Set to musing about the end of s2 and the gaps after the events of the finale, I had honestly intended to write something focused on Jane Cobden. This happened instead. I think it works, but, as always, I leave it to you to decide. It begins with the final moments of episode 2.08.
> 
> I make no money, because they don’t belong to me. And rightfully so – I’ve gone and done this with them.

 

* * *

 

 

He thinks her an apparition, unable to connect her to this place through the rage clouding his mind. His shouts echo in his ears, in the expression in her eyes which he cannot truly see at this distance. He turns away, startled.

 

When he turns back, she has gone.

 

He thinks to follow. He has no idea what he would say. The letter had ended things between them, though any explanations had been scarce and vague. No doubt why she had come, to argue with him over it. He had left too many spaces to be filled.

 

The fury still pounds through his skull; in the ring, Drake’s arm is raised the victor. Shine lies battered and motionless on the canvas. Reid cannot breathe in this thick air, clogged with sweat and blood and the yelling voices of the men crowding the room. It presses heavily against him. The noise compressing and thinning, until it resembles nothing more than a high-pitched whine.

 

They have lost their chance at Shine; he has lost his chance with Jane. His control. His dignity. Drake will not meet his eyes as Artherton helps him down from the ring.

 

“Bennet, I…” Reid begins. A rush of congratulatory bodies sweep in to separate him from the sergeant. It is just as well. He knows not how the sentence was going to end.

 

Shine’s limp form is carried out by a couple of stout Limehouse boys, the crowd starting to split into its clumps of elation and disappointment. Artherton appears long enough to murmur something about a fete at The Bear. Reid nods as if he will join them, though they both understand he has no real plans to do so.

 

He sinks into one of the wooden folding chairs, unaware of the room’s gradual transition from full to empty. He can hear the roar of the crowd even now that they’ve gone. His own voice screaming a command to kill. It beats wings against his ears. Boils under his skin.

 

Shine’s sneer, that untouchable smirk. Reid’s hands flex in and out of impotent fists. Duggan. Flight. The ground swept out from under him, and it feels like there is nothing left. He is on his feet now. The chair gripped hard in his hands.

 

The wood cracks as he swings it against the metal ring post. Again. Again. The connection reverberates about in the space.

 

He doesn’t truly know what it is he does, not until his breaths begin to slow and the pulsing red starts to fade from his sight. His shoulder aches. The chair reduced to little more than a loose framework of splintered stakes that may disintegrate even in his hold. Reid drops it to the floor, and the rest of it breaks apart.

 

He sucks in gulps of air that do nothing to oxygenate his brain. The pieces of chair on the ground swim disturbingly in and out of focus.

 

"So who won?"

 

It comes a slurred question behind him; Reid turns to see Jackson silhouetted near the door, his fingers wrapped around the neck of a bottle. The American staggers as he approaches, stumbling sideways a few steps before righting his course. “Are we cererba… cereba… sssseberlating?”

 

Too difficult a word, it seems, for Jackson’s current state of intoxication. Reid attempts to reset, to drag himself back from the events here so as to deal with him. He wonders if the American’s condition has something to do with the man recently revealed to be residing under his wife’s Tenter Street roof.

 

The bottle is thrust into his hand, and Reid accepts the silent offer. Jackson throws himself down into a chair as the swig of whiskey burns at Reid’s throat. He settles beside him. Takes another drink before handing the bottle back.

 

“Drake won the bout,” Reid says, his eyes on the bloody patches of canvas in the ring. Not all of it Shine’s. Not nearly enough of it Shine’s.

 

“S’good.” A quiet now, and a glance at Jackson shows that he too stares off into the nebulous distance. He sits with his lips wrapped absently around the mouth of the whiskey bottle; it’s a long moment before he shakes himself. Drinks. “Ain’t that good?”

 

Reid grunts, a noncommittal sound.

 

“More good news,” Jackson announces; Reid waits, somewhat skeptical that what is to follow will actually make any sense. The American toasts the humid air in front of them. “Don’t have to worry about Duggan anymore.”

 

“What?” Reid can see the man clearly, sitting across from him in his office. Talking down to him as if he were a child. As unreachable as Shine. The remembered anger is quick to span across time and build upon the remnants of this night; Reid nearly grabs Jackson by his lapels, itching to jostle the information out of him. “Explain.”

 

“Dead,” Jackson says. “Stuck like the fat pig he was.”

 

He hands Reid the liquor. Does not elaborate. “You?” Reid asks.

 

“Nope.” He pops the _p_ , seemingly amused by the hollow sound it makes in the silence of their surroundings. He repeats the action a few more times, his lips pressed tightly together and deliberately separated to create the entertaining suction. When Jackson stretches his hand toward Reid in a demand for the bottle, Reid realizes he’s not yet had a drink. He has been entirely occupied with watching this unexpectedly distracting motion.

 

He tips it back again before giving it over. Jackson’s first swipe for it misses the mark; Reid tries to direct the thick glass into his waiting hand. “Tell me,” he says, though it vibrates less of a command than he had intended.

 

“S’not important the _how_ , Reid. S’done. One less bad guy.” He toasts their invisible company again. “So crack a goddamn smile.”

 

Smile. Good news, yes, but it feels a drop in the sea. “And what of you?” Reid counters. “You do not exactly seem… happy.”

 

“As a clam,” comes the drunken protest. The words slip into themselves, unconvincing.

 

Reid grabs for the bottle, pleased to notice that the room has started to blur a little at its edges. “Then why are you here? Rather than returned home?”

 

“S’not important,” Jackson slurs again. The echo makes Reid think that perhaps indeed it is. “Stop askin’ stupid questions.”

 

It might be more of a slap were it not so garbled. Petulant. Reid ignores it, helping himself to the waning whiskey. Jackson slumps into his chair, his eyelids at half mast.

 

“Came to cheer Drake on,” he says. “You know me. Man’s number one fan.”

 

It takes Reid’s brain a bit too long to translate this Americanism; for a moment all he can come up with is the image of Jackson using a paper fan to cool Drake’s face. _Fan. Fanatic._ Of course. And of course not. Sarcasm dripping from the sodden words.

 

“You should join them,” Reid continues in the same vein. “They gather at The Bear.”

 

“Right,” his American says, not making a move to get up. “M’headed over there now.”

 

Reid does get up, drinking again before handing the bottle back. He crosses the few paces between the front row and the ring, leans his back against it. Unfocused frustration skitters across his frame still. It grinds his teeth together. Seeks an outlet for its expression. Jackson is not much of a distraction or a target, the man looking to be nearly dead weight in his seat.

 

A part of him recognizes that he may soon need to find a way to get the American out of here, as he’s rapidly heading toward not being able to do it himself. The idea does nothing to improve his mood. Reid sighs, and scrubs at his eyes.

 

“Go home,” he growls. “Reclaim your marital bed.”

 

He doesn’t register Jackson’s sudden surge to his feet, but he’s able to avoid the sloppy swing with a simple shift of his balance. Momentum carries the other man past him, into the ring apron. Reid’s thrown by the uncharacteristic move, by what he himself has just said. He watches Jackson push upright, as stunned as if the intended punch had landed true across his jaw.

 

“Don’t you talk about my wife, Reid.” Jackson’s voice a dangerous snarl.

 

"Apologies,” he says, sincerely. He studies the man wavering before him. Reaches out instinctively to steady him with a hand on his elbow when he manages somehow to stumble while standing still.

 

Jackson yanks the arm away from him, almost sending himself to the ground in the other direction. “Ain’t one to talk anyway,” he grumbles. Reid can barely separate the words from themselves. “I read the paper. Shouldn’t you be off fuckin-“

 

He does not get to finish the sentence. Reid’s hand finds his elbow again, jerks the arm up behind his back. He forces Jackson forward, bent over the edge of the ring; his free hand holds the man’s face down onto the dirty canvas. They’re both dragging in ragged gasps of air, their breath mingling hot and angry. Jackson squirms against him, fighting to escape the full-body press of Reid’s weight pinning him to the spot.

 

“Off,” he grunts, struggling.

 

There’s a ringing in Reid’s ears now. He doesn’t immediately comply.

 

Another beat, two, and he slowly begins to come back to himself. Abrupt awareness of his position causes him to relax his stance a little, enough that Jackson is able to flip himself back around. So close now, their faces. Jackson’s eyes wide, and his breath rasping short.

 

His lips part, as if he intends to speak. When his hand instead grabs the back of Reid’s head and pulls him in fast to crush their mouths together, the shock leaves no space for resistance.

 

Rough. Hungry. Without breaking the embrace, Jackson shoves Reid stumbling backward until they find the solidity of the ring post. Reid feels the thud of the connection through his spine, through the hand cupping his head. There’s a hint of iron in the taste of the whiskey in their mouths, one of them bleeding.

 

The thought barely spared a notice in the flood of so many other unfamiliar sensations. Not when Jackson’s other hand is busy undoing the buttons of his trousers. Someone moans, a deep pleading sound. The part of Reid’s mind still thinking suspects that it may have been him.

 

But this isn’t right. Certainly not here. Reid makes an incoherent noise that he works to shape into a protest. It morphs itself into something nearer another moan as his American slides that wandering hand into his pants.

 

His body responds, twitches and stiffens further with the contact of skin against skin. Jackson’s mouth on his neck now, the whisper of his mustache leading an abuse of teeth and stubble as he bruises his way up toward Reid’s ear. A groan that _absolutely_ falls from his lips. His hips buck under the stroking hand.

 

_Not here_ , his brain hisses, and had he more mastery of himself he would no doubt be a bit unnerved by how quickly this has shifted from _not ever_. It is not that he has denied this possibility. He simply has not really ever considered it.

 

As he takes no time to consider it now. Jackson’s heat, his smell, enveloping him; that clever hand proving its worth far beyond the skill of surgery. _Not here…_ Anyone could walk in on them. Reid groans again, making a weak attempt to push the American away.

 

Jackson pulls his head back, craning his neck to be able to see Reid’s face. His hand, however, continues its tease. A sly smile spreads over his lips, one he has never before leveled in Reid’s direction. “You sufferin’ unduly?” Reid blinks at him, wholly unsure _what_ it is that he is. “Then shut the hell up,” Jackson says, when no answer comes.

 

Having apparently decided that this resolves any possible complaint, he lowers himself clumsily to his knees.

 

Reid’s breath hitches; he’s confused by the sudden loss of contact. The next inhalation catches even more sharply in his throat, when Jackson uses that hand to expose his skin to the air. Before Reid can process this, the cool air is replaced by the silky warmth of Jackson's mouth. He nearly loses all control right there.

 

Emily has certainly never done this. Nor any other. It is an experience completely unknown. He can form no thought beyond this astonished acknowledgement; his heartbeat throbs erratically in his ears. The entire world has narrowed to the motion of Jackson’s mouth, slippery and smooth. Working him into a frenzy of pleasure that will not be long ignored.

 

His knuckles are bloody when his hand tangles itself into his American’s hair.

 

Light crackles across the inside of his eyelids. Darting. Elusive. His need for release swells to push out all else. It seems he cannot breathe at all now. He finds it matters little, in the current scheme of things.  

 

He tries to offer up a warning, when the climb of sensation suddenly tips to send him tumbling over the edge. “Jackson,” he croaks, “I cannot–“ He is not sure he gets it out in time.

 

Jackson chokes. Swallows. He drags his sleeve across his mouth and sits back on his heels, chasing the taste with a swig of the whiskey. Reid’s trembling legs decide to stop supporting his weight, and he slides down the pole at his back to settle awkwardly beside the American on the cold ground.

 

“Oops,” Jackson says. Punctuated with something that’s almost a giggle.

 

Reid fights to marshal his thoughts into lines that may suggest some kind – _any_ kind – of a response. Before he can manage anything like this, Jackson tips over sideways to curl into what looks a surprisingly comfortable lump on the floor.

 

He has the presence of mind to recompose himself finally, fumbles to do up his buttons. But not much beyond this. Anything intelligent attempting to take shape from the squishing morass of his brain dissolves the instant he reaches for it. He sits with his legs sprawled out before him, Jackson appearing barely conscious where he lies just past Reid’s upturned shoe.

 

He wonders what it is that’s supposed to happen next.

 

Eventually Reid stirs; they cannot sit here all night. He stretches his leg enough to nudge at the American with the toe of his shoe, a completely ineffective effort. “Jackson,” he tries. His voice is hoarse, his throat raw from the earlier screaming. The abrasion of the whiskey. Other things.

 

“Mmmph,” Jackson says.

 

The whiskey, the evening… It swirls about in his head. Reid feels no more coherent.

 

He shifts onto his knees, in preparation for getting up. Jackson still does not move. “Come,” Reid says. “It is time to go home.”

 

“Don’wanna,” Jackson mumbles into the arm he uses as a pillow. “Can’t.”

 

Reid gives his other arm a tug, his hand slick with sweat against the leather of the jacket. “Then we shall go to my home. I refuse to sleep here.”

 

After much trial and error he gets the drunk American to his feet, slinging Jackson’s arm over his shoulders. It is a slow progression they make, staggering joined down the dark streets. Reid wishes for nothing more than his bed, the consequences of all this – whatever they may turn out to be – to be dealt with sometime later. Jackson is quiet, save the occasional nonsensical grumble; they’ve gotten themselves into a rhythm when he abruptly stops short. Reid falls back onto his heels, caught up by their connection.

 

“Gonna puke,” the American says, struggling to pull away.

 

There is no need for a mental workout to translate this idiom; Reid looks in the opposite direction while Jackson does what he must. The whiskey sloshes about unpleasantly in his own stomach, the sounds of retching behind him far from soothing. He swallows hard, working to convince his body that what is inside should remain right where it is.

 

It feels half the night gone when they finally stumble their way to his door, Reid’s shoulder and back complaining under the punishment of Jackson’s uneven weight. He struggles with the key; it is reluctant to fit into the lock. The house beckons empty and chilled when the heavy front door swings open under the push of his hand.

 

Reid drops the other man on the sofa without ceremony, stretching as he straightens. Jackson offers no comment as to this treatment, resting his head against the back of it and immediately closing his eyes.

 

It feels as if something should be said, at least a passing reference made to this act that has so monumentally altered the previous terms of their relationship. Reid sways a little as he stares down at this man he has called friend, uncertain even about his own thoughts on the subject. Not now, when the surprise is still so fresh. Not now, when the alcohol still clouds his emotions and his brain.

 

Jackson is already insensible. Snoring.

 

Reid turns to head up the stairs. Intent on collapsing face down onto his bed.

 

 

 

**end**

 

 


End file.
